WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.366 --> 00:00:03.703 There is no doubt about the buzz surrounding electric cars this year. 2 00:00:03.943 --> 00:00:07.943 Major carmakers are betting big on the technology, but will it pay off? 3 00:00:08.437 --> 00:00:15.312 One filmmaker thinks so, and his new film looks at the role the electric car will play in the future of the automotive industry. 4 00:00:17.076 --> 00:00:23.548 Plugging in instead of filling up, this year many consumers will get their first chance to buy an electric car. 5 00:00:23.987 --> 00:00:27.908 Electric models from Nissan and GM are now sold in the U.S. and Europe. 6 00:00:28.202 --> 00:00:32.275 But this isn't the first time a major car maker has gone electric. 7 00:00:33.616 --> 00:00:38.496 Rewind to 1997, GM released the EV1. 8 00:00:39.038 --> 00:00:42.799 The electric car is here. 9 00:00:43.452 --> 00:00:44.942 Not quite, it turns out. 10 00:00:45.085 --> 00:00:50.270 Only 1,000 EV1s were produced, available only for lease in California and Arizona. 11 00:00:50.723 --> 00:00:55.897 A few years later, GM decided to pull the plug, repossessing the cars and destroying them. 12 00:00:56.278 --> 00:00:59.546 The Detroit giant said that the technology simply wasn't ready. 13 00:00:59.921 --> 00:01:03.598 Many of the early converts were disappointed, including Chris Paine. 14 00:01:03.955 --> 00:01:09.516 We had an amazing experience with this car, and one day they said, we're taking the cars back. 15 00:01:09.893 --> 00:01:11.906 And it wasn't just my car, it was all these cars. 16 00:01:12.323 --> 00:01:15.169 So we started digging down to see what had happened, 17 00:01:15.278 --> 00:01:21.159 and it turned out that a variety of forces had kind of come together to kill this generation of cars. 18 00:01:21.344 --> 00:01:25.422 So that's why we made the film, to kind of make a murder mystery out of this whole story. 19 00:01:27.647 --> 00:01:31.515 His 2006 film, Who Killed the Electric Car? became a cult hit. 20 00:01:31.864 --> 00:01:34.974 It chronicled the short life of electric cars in the late '90s 21 00:01:35.166 --> 00:01:38.933 which arrived as a result of tighter restrictions on air pollution in California. 22 00:01:39.249 --> 00:01:41.898 The film didn't shy away from laying blame. 23 00:01:42.343 --> 00:01:46.601 The culprits in the film ranged from the oil companies to the carmakers themselves. 24 00:01:48.675 --> 00:01:51.288 In 2011, it is a radically different climate. 25 00:01:51.789 --> 00:01:58.278 Enter Paine's new documentary, The Revenge of the Electric Car. This time, electric cars are going mass market. 26 00:01:58.447 --> 00:02:02.738 There's a degree of excitement around electric vehicles we hadn't seen before. 27 00:02:02.738 --> 00:02:05.393 The film follows four leaders in the field: 28 00:02:05.658 --> 00:02:09.820 former GM vice chairman Bob Lutz, Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn... 29 00:02:09.953 --> 00:02:14.959 We need to predict the future, prepare for it. If it happens, we'll be ready. 30 00:02:15.085 --> 00:02:19.283 Electric car enthusiasts Greg Abbott and Tesla founder Elon Musk. 31 00:02:19.408 --> 00:02:22.910 Until we see every car on the road being electric, we will not stop. 32 00:02:23.039 --> 00:02:28.207 This big surprise is that electric cars are coming back as fast as they are. 33 00:02:28.611 --> 00:02:33.684 Some people are, you know, wondering whether our film is trying to be too corporate friendly in a sense, 34 00:02:33.763 --> 00:02:39.055 but my intention is electric cars need to be in the marketplace. 35 00:02:39.135 --> 00:02:40.295 We haven't been able to buy them. 36 00:02:40.711 --> 00:02:45.244 If the corporations are going to help us buy them, then we're gonna tell that story. 37 00:02:45.706 --> 00:02:49.805 The electric cars featured in the film are currently available only in select markets. 38 00:02:50.139 --> 00:02:51.586 So for many around the world, 39 00:02:51.648 --> 00:02:56.171 we'll have to wait until spring for the film and even later for the cars.